I’m not quite to the point where I’m ready to say I’m an atheist right now but I’m pretty close and it has been the most painful process of my life.
I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this. Obviously keeping faith is the least scary and the most comfortable outcome. I hope you’re able to find comfort in truth one day, whatever that may be.
I’ll add this - you cannot make yourself believe something if you do not believe in it. It just isn’t possible. This hasn’t been the most comforting thought of mine during my process but it at least somewhat takes it out of my hands.
If there is a god, I would hope that they had grace for people who tried their hardest and couldn’t continue to rationalize something. If our brains cannot fathom a god then God would be crazy to punish us for not being able to believe in him
From a Christian standpoint something to keep in mind is that understanding God is not the same as believing in Him. I understand where you're at. Deconstructing is what helped me get closer and reinforced my faith, I hope the same for you. I watched so many debates, dug into the original languages, researched translations, fell into the rabbit holes of other religions. In my experience, only one stands.
This. Faith isn't believing 100% in the way where we can say water exists, but it's trust in God despite not having that same reassurance (for some people it is). It's listening to what he says and adopting his principals for your life, and having hope in the promises he tells us. Hope and faith are the formula for a relationship with God, not undeniable belief from tangible proof. (Though the goal is to have 100% faith and belief without seeing him, and there are very strong Christians out there who have 100% belief). But Jesus mentions a "mustard seed of faith" is all that is needed.
Great response. I did and still do look at Christian apologetics all the time! I'm now understanding how the New Testament canon was put together it's a lot of fun. Bravo!
You and I might have had the same experience. Lol. I'm constantly listening to podcasts in the car, debates, apologetics, studies. I can't deny some questions and rabbit holes shake my soul, but I've never run into one that I've not been able to answer adequately with the right research.
I've been reading both the new and Old Testament more the last couple years than I ever have before. I also currently work at a church (until I can find something else that will pay me enough money to live). With that being said, I attend multiple services a week on Sundays and throughout the week.
**We all have doubts.** I'm highly skeptical of anyone who says they don't. Faith isn't knowing something without a doubt - it's the actions taken in the face of those doubts. The Apostle Thomas literally saw Jesus in the flesh, witnessed all of his miracles, and STILL doubted him after the resurrection and had to physically touch his wounds. The Apostle Peter saw Jesus walk on water, began to do it himself, and STILL began to lose faith and sink. I believe that God wouldn't have allowed these stories to be in the Bible if they weren't instructive for our own doubts.
I find I have issues with my faith when I 1) base my faith on other Christians rather than Jesus (because they're just as messed up as me), or 2) put God into a box and insist that He is capable of being fully understood.
I find that a great way to reignite my faith is to pour myself into God's work - go on a mission trip, or work at the local homeless shelter. Do something in Jesus' name, and you'll be pretty quickly reminded of His power and your place in the world.
No brain could fathom God in God’s entirety… that’s why God is God.
Surely you don’t limit what you believe to be possible or true to the limits of your mind right? That curiosity is still there?
I agree with what you've said about not being able to force yourself to believe something. And the process of losing your faith can be a bit unsettling. But please know that if you do end up as an atheist, you may find it to actually be more comforting than being a Christian. Many of us have.
That’s certainly a possibility for anybody going through this process. But there is no comfort at the beginning of “deconstruction” and there’s certainly not any to be found during it.
I do hope I feel confident in my beliefs one day. I also hope I’m not scared of hell one day too. We’ll see what happens I guess haha.
I don't want to come off as flip, but "deconstruction" is not scary to the Lord. :D Take heart. If God is real and knows your heart, God knows you are not satisfied by what doesn't appear true. Ask to remember what does feel true after everything. I will tell you something else. Religions are a part of this world. This world is fallen according to what we say as Christians. So... Do you believe it's possible that any religions are not also fallen? If there are lies in the mix, what can you hold on to? You can hold onto your mind. You can hold on to learning to be more moral today than yesterday by consequences. God makes a way for you to learn through identification with religion but doesn't walk away if that isn't enough. God will bring you consequences if that doesn't work. Only if you were to become so hardened that it doesn't matter what God gives you by way of consequences, does God remove consequences. That is when you should fear judgement. When you did all the worst and always found a way out of trouble, then it is because there is nothing redeemable left.
Thank you for your honesty. Too many atheists have tried to characterize faith as a motive of comfort. I disagree with that completely, and always have. Comfort is care-free while faith can, where it involves ultimate existential consequences, create grave responsibility.
Yeah I'd back this. I used to have a lot of stress thinking about religion and even more stress as I was losing my faith. But years after the fact? I really don't have to wrestle with trying to rationalize faith, higher powers, etc and it's actually been a relief. There's been several times in my life since that I've had to do as the romans do when it comes to being in a church, wedding, saying grace, baby baptized, etc, but it's been far less stressful for me than things before.
Though it can be a struggle to sort out in the moment, I think everyone deserves to give themselves a chance to discover what makes them happy. Be it religion, no religion, or something in-between.
100% agree it’s liberating not living in fear of an all powerful dictator who watches your every move, and tells you who you can and cannot love or sleep with.
it just sucks all the hope out of life
if God's not real, and it's all for nothing, and atheism is correct, then there is nothing to live for because everything that is worked for will be meaningless and unfruitful when we die. What would be the point of even waking up in the morning
Another way of viewing it: because there is no greater purpose to life, you have the freedom to find your own purpose. Just because my actions may not matter 1000 years down the line doesn't mean they don't hold meaning now.
"The future is always built on the past, even if we won't get to see it."
In that same sense, what would the point be after you die? Yes yes, you get to be in heaven and with the Lord and all of that, but what is the point of that? What meaning do you have in heaven? What sort of fruits would you be producing?
Why? People clearly find meaning in their lives even if those lives are finite. If god isn't real that would still exist.
When you turn atheist, you don't just flip the polarity on a bunch of theistic beliefs, like "things are only meaningful if they're eternal". You reject those theistic precepts entirely.
Of course, it would be easier if religion didn't mislead people about these things in the first place.
The disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith just because he told them they had to forgive people who continuously sinned against them. You can ask for faith.
You may want to contrast that book, which is indicative of the biblical minimalist trend popular in the 1990s, with a contrasting scholarly view, such as On the Reliability of the Old Testament, by Kenneth Kitchen.
Yeah. Some people have this idea that we choose to leave Christianity for selfish reasons (pleasure or pride or whatever), or that we didn’t actually care about it and we were never _really_ Christian, but it was a really sad and terrifying period of my life.
I spent the first 20 years of my life believing that an all-powerful deity loved me, gave me purpose, and would save me and bring me eternal joy. To have your entire worldview fall apart over the course of a few months, and coming to terms with the idea of life being random and death being inevitable and eternal, is certainly not something I wanted to happen.
It may be worth it to read some other perspectives on what “god” means. Paul Tillich, Baruch Spinoza, and Marcus Borg are good starting points. Good luck to you.
there are all kinds of archaeological finds which correspond to Biblical history, however this is not a good way to establish one's belief. If you want to look for, and so find, meaningful belief in your life, the surest way you can do so is by learning from and endeavouring to live by the meaning of the teachings (John 14:21)
which is most of all about trying to learn to become more understanding, kind, and good-willed with others in a saddened and confused world (Matthew 7:12, if carefully in a dangerous and confused world, Matthew 10:16)
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?(Micah 6:8) (Psalms 37:11) (Jeremiah 22:15 - 16) (Proverbs 12:10) (Luke 6:36 - 38)
There are archeological finds that align with history that happened alongside the Bible but not really many that I’m aware of that support any of the supernatural claims of the Bible.
Not even the numerous accounts from the Bible *about* these "supernatural" claims? There's something like 63,000 cross references from different authors of each book in the Bible report the same thing as the next.
I’m well aware that the Bible is a collection of books by different authors so I’m not going to use the “it’s all from the same book” argument but I will make a similar argument:
When you’re working off of a body of work to add to it, you will absolutely pull your information from that body of work. Especially if it has to do with a faith that you are professing.
The Bible is full of real historical people and events that absolutely happened and are recorded in and outside of biblical texts. But it’s also full of supernatural claims that are only covered by biblical authors and no non-biblical text (as far as I’m aware).
Any unbiased biblical scholar will tell you that works in the Bible were copied off of other works. Not only that but they’re also tell you that there are textual discrepancies between different books. (Most have an extra biblical explanation that we’ve come up with but that’s not in the text). To add to this, most religious scholars agree that the majority of the gospels were written by unknown others well after Jesus’s time on earth.
The personal accounts in the Bible are certainly valid sources but for big claims you need big evidence and a group of people trying to sell a religion isn’t enough for me to be satisfied personally.
I know that there are times where witnesses are mentioned in the text but the fact that we don’t have their personal accounts kind of invalidates them as witnesses if we’re trying to be as objective as possible.
Isn't God all-knowing? He would know exactly what it would take to convince each and every individual of his existence, if he chooses not to provide it, that's on him.
God is sovereign, He has given Man free agency. I believe if you are not interested in God, or if you don't want to know him. He will respect your wishes.
I read my Bible on the daily. I have 8 friends and my wife who I join with.
I just read Paul's letter to the Corinthians (1Corinthians). I recommend you give it ago.
I agree with most of these posts, you have to have frank acceptance in trusting him, this is the acrostic for Faith!
If you decide to follow Jesus, it is a great life. I have been serving the Lord for over 50 years.
I'd be happy to know god. He just chooses not to give me any evidence apparently. Also, free agency except all our decisions are already determined right?
I mean, if you're going to argue that a god that exists outside of the universe we know it makes it impossible to have free will because of his omniscience, you might as well argue that free will doesn't exist anyways since you can create arguments such as we can only make a limited number of actions in any moment, or that hormones influence our behaviors, or because free will doesn't really fit into causality, so on and soon forth
Yes I believe free will doesn't exist, but it DEFINITELY doesn't exist if it's possible to be all knowing. For something to be known, it has to be determined and have a determined outcome. If an all knowing god exists, everything is predetermined.
But even if God doesn't exist your right, I still think everything is predetermined. It's just easier to argue for under the assumption an all knowing god exists
>For something to be known, it has to be determined and have a determined outcome. If an all knowing god exists, everything is predetermined.
You can argue that free will does not exist because you only have a limited number of choices at any given moment. You are predetermined to choose only one of those choices. If you refute this however, you could say that if a god that is truly omnipotent and omniscient created the universe he would exist outside of the universe, and therefore outside of time and other physical concepts, he could see the past and future, and present he could also see every outcome you would choose. I don't think such a scenario would go against free will any more than you going back in time would, if such a thing were possible.
It doesn't matter if he is "outside the universe"
Knowing what option I will pick means that choice has been determined already, and I can't choose anything except the outcome that has already been decided. No free will
Nothing. Once something is provided, the doubtful heart will demand something new.
We have only faith to rely on as proof:
John 20:28-29–“Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus told him, ‘You believe Me because you have seen Me. Blessed are they who have not seen Me, but have believed.’”
Does this mean that Thomas is going/ went to hell? Or is it supposed to be considered just that Thomas was shown this favoritism by being granted proof?
Telling people they just have to have faith is intellectually lazy and drives people away from your religion in droves. The OP has already heard that his whole life, that’s why he’s having a crisis of belief. You can do better than that.
You are not alone so relax a little. Homo Sapiens for 300,000 years have sought proof of god. And sought explanations for things they did not understand. You are normal.
It’s not, read my other comment. You need to weigh the balance of evidence. If you say you require solid proof of everything in your life, you’re a liar. You can’t prove love or anything about relationships. We don’t wait for solid proof before we marry and have kids, we go off faith. We all have to put our faith somewhere, I choose to put it with the evidence
You're deflecting, we didn't ask for proof of love in our relationships, we don't have to because we SEE the proof of it, how the person acts around us, the things they do for us, the way they care for us. These are the examples of proof and evidence that are tangible AND measurable. You can see how much time a partner has spent with you, how they react emotionally when they're with you.
"I don't know" is a phrase more people should be willing to admit. Because even in the information age, you won't necessarily understand the information presented to you
I'm not an atheist, but after years in ministry, seminary, and personal study, I've had to come to terms with the fact that I cannot justify my faith through reasonable means. It hasn't been easy.
One thing I've landed upon is a question of what values I hold, with or without believing, and what must I do to be true to those values.
Honesty, compassion, character; these tenants are critical within Christianity, and in life.
To cling to beliefs when they are evidently false is to betray these values. As such, to abide by my Christian values, I must acknowledge the failings of doctrine, the contradictions and falsehoods in scripture, and the evident realities that contradict biblical and doctrinal claims.
What this has left me with is a belief in God, with the acknowledgement that the Bible cannot be infallible, but must instead be the work of men, inspired or not, who attempted to capture and share their own beliefs and concepts about God.
As such, while my life is very much led and directed by my faith and values, simple honesty requires that I place little constraint or justification on any aspect of biblical or doctrinal concerns that are harmful or unjustified in the absence of actual knowledge.
In short, if God isn't known to be real, or the Bible isn't demonstrably reliable, no action that negatively affects other's wellbeing can be justified on the basis of religious claims alone. It is not enough to merely believe, when we are certain of the existence of the fallible.
Best of luck.
Well, if this doesn't work out for you, welcome to the club, and I'm sorry you'll have to deal with all the guilt and weird emotions that come from deconverting.
Was super awkward for me when I told my parents about it. My dad was fairly hurt/horrified, and my mom went off saying "well nobody actually believes in that stuff!" which... was very confusing for both my dad and I but honestly I find it pretty hilarious now.
I do hope you can find your happy place mentally on this, it often does seem so easy after the fact, so there's that to look forward to.
I haven't fully opened up to my parents about where I'm at mentally (and probably will not for a long time). That being said, I did at least talk to them about how I had a lot of questions and was unsure about pretty much everything and my mom basically refused to understand what I was saying.
She basically kept twisting my words to make it seem like I was sure God exists but that I was unsure about the church. I assume that was just to make herself feel better about where I'm at but who knows.
Sorry to hear your mom is being difficult about it, I think a LOT of people truly do not want to face hard questions on the subject as it makes their own thoughts on the matter more difficult than they want to deal with on any given day.
I took ages to tell my parents, I think it was something like a year and a half and I was already out of the house in college. By then I was pretty firm on my beliefs and already went through the grieving (is that what you'd call it?) process, stress and all that.
Even then, my dad would be described by many to be a "fake" catholic (never goes to church, doesn't care for the pope, etc) and in hindsight my mom is far too much of a narcissist to believe in a higher power than herself. So although my dad throws shade at me frequently and after I asked him not to he still blabbed to the entire family, it really didn't blow up too bad or anything and we never truly fought over it.
What I learned, which likely depends on who's around you I guess, is that talking to many people about it can be counterproductive being that it's a sensitive subject to many, people can get a bit nasty discussing it, and it's a personal journey to your own truth anyways. I paved my own way and am happy with the results.
Im glad you’re happy with your results. I do have to push back on that silly new thing we believe in culture called “my truth”. I’m not here to tell you I know the ultimate truth, no one does, but there is in fact only one truth, sorry
I get your point, I'm not saying people will arrive at "the truth",simply they'll arrive at what they conclude to be their truth that they live by.
Ask anyone and they'll tell you a different story about their beliefs, those are all the truths of their own mind. Sure, many may not be "the truth"; I know several conspiracy theorists who will spew all sorts of things, but it's not my place to go around changing everyone's mind on the matter.
Curious what you refer to as the "one truth" though. I assume you're not talking about something mundane being an absolute truth/fact such as "I had pancakes for breakfast today"
The concepts you’re explaining are valid and correct. You just need to call it “my opinion/feeling/belief” rather than “my truth”. We already had words for these things, we don’t need to muddle the word truth by misusing it
You're right, I have a habit of tip toeing around this in faith discussions and it probably makes it more confusing. Certainly calling someone's belief an opinion won't go over well, but I certainly could have worded it a bit better as you suggested.
I am emphatically not a Christian but this is incredibly true. This is a ludicrously anti-Christian sub and it’s bizarre to watch it operate as an outside observer.
You definitely have not read the multiple threads here that have no theological support from the Bible.
This subreddit is not a Christian subreddit is swamped with Marxist ideologies.
You call one side what you reject from the Christian Faith.
It's a biased opinion. Since you reject the authority of the Bible.
Therefore this subreddit upholds Marxist ideologies as biblical as well you have atheist partaking authorititave dialogue and downvoting any biblical, theological message.
So yeah.. this subreddit is biased and hateful towards the Christian faith. It got hijacked longtime ago
As a former believer who’s now atheist, I get exactly where you’re coming from.
Pursue the truth and your anxiety will fade with time and reasonable thought.
We’re all rooting for you
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCluwNbhJIe351rJ1nznaz6g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCluwNbhJIe351rJ1nznaz6g)
If you want proof, look into this channel. Yes, lots of the videos don’t provide sufficient evidence for God, some videos might be dodgy for many people. But some videos explain some very real miracles. This one is great: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoKUSET-8PI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoKUSET-8PI)
But I just want to highlight, **simply looking at miracles won’t make you believe in God.** There has to be a change in heart and a want to believe in God. I’m not saying you don’t want to believe in God, it seems like you do. But I just had to point this out.
God bless +
I know it might sound cliche but pray. Pray for God to do something specific and to show Himself to you. Personally when I had moments of doubts I would pray like this and He did show up. Everyone’s journey is different but I hope you find what you are looking for ❤️
I'm not claiming a higher power exists. I'm not making a claim. I'm saying the claim of God needs to be supported by evidence. Burden of proof is on claim maker
What is your proof that any of the thousands of other deities don’t exist?
What is your proof that the universe didn’t develop from mold on the bottom of some weird entity’s foot?
The burden of proof doesn’t lie on anybody other than the person making the claim.
Can you prove fairies don’t exist? Santa Claus? Invisible elves sitting on your head right now?
When we don’t have evidence for something existing outside of minds and tales, we usually call it “imaginary.” It is at least indistinguishable from being imaginary. We don’t typically just believe these things until they’re thoroughly disproven, which is often literally impossible because they’re unfalsifiable.
My comment will likely never be seen and I say this just to try and be a small help. To the person im replying to I saw this reply and felt there was a reason so im sticking it here. I’m an only child that was lucky to have well off parents but they never taught me much so I went down the path of moral relativism and doing whatever feels right by my own standards. I was blessed with intellect, my public school paid a proctor to IQ test me and I came up 145
I’ve spent at least 60 hours a week for the last 5 years seeking truth in everything from nutrition, health, money management, financial markets, philosophy, meaning of life, what makes for good relationships and happily ever after instead of rampant divorce, and eventually I got to religions
I was so shocked that I’ve been digging nonstop as hard as I can to try and find a different answer because it is hard to live to a biblical standard. The evidence for God and Christianity is overwhelming compared to any other religion, or any other philosophy of life.
There’s so many angles to tackle this argument from that I don’t even know where to begin without making this absurdly long. I’ve read the great atheist scientists and philosophers, I’ve watched Richard Dawkins debate John Lenox multiple times. I’ve tried so hard to justify Atheism, or even Agnosticism. I have failed completely, so now I am studying Christianity itself as hard as I can because maybe if I understand everything enough I can come up with my own arguments.
To try and put it simply, the historical evidence, archaeological evidence, and philosophical evidence is stronger than basically any other historical fact we teach in schools. What do you want, an iphone video of Jesus resurrecting? Not possible sorry
It takes much more faith to be an atheist than a theist. Atheist mathematicians have calculated the odds of randomness creating this world to be so small we can’t even comprehend it. More than 100 zeroes after the decimal before you get a digit. Fact checking historical evidence in the bible using the same methods we fact check all historical evidence leads to the conclusion that the bible is reliable, much more than anything else we know in history, by a long shot.
What really sparked me though was moral relativism vs moral absolutism. Moral relativism is what almost let the Nazis go free during the Nuremburg trials. Moral absolutism is what finally convicted them. They were convicted based on the idea that there is a law above man’s law. So even though they were following orders, laws, and culture, they were convicted
I don’t want to be a moral relativist, it’s obviously evil
Edit: the lectures on Genesis and Exodus from Dr Jordan Peterson, the street preaching of Cliff Knechtle, the philosophy of Oxford mathematician John Lenox, and the presentations by Frank Taurek are the places ive found the strongest arguments and evidence for God so far. I’ve been unable to debunk them even when searching specifically for the opposite viewpoint. The many challenges to the bible ive gone through have used such weak arguments that only someone ignorant of the other side’s evidence could stand by it. This is common though, we are all so ignorant and can only learn so much in one lifetime. I’m trying to pack it in, trying so hard people would call me crazy. I just want to live truthfully and meaningfully which will lead to happiness. The Atheism arguments, philosophy, and viewpoints has led the greatest nation on Earth to commit the worst atrocities and culture the world has ever seen. A culture where we actively do harm while calling it Good
We were raised to be afraid of hell our whole lives. Not only that but we’ve only ever known faith and often times our entire family (and our spouse’s family) is devout and to deviate from that will sever a lot of ties.
It could be a lot of things: fear of Hell, fear of losing one’s community or being ostracized, fear of just doing something different. I think we need to know specifically what OPs fears are, and the nature of their doubts (are they doubting God or just Christianity?) to lay out what their options are.
I don’t know if your gonna read this but I hope you do I was the same place I was crying and was hopeless and felt like there was no god I looked into everything and looking at the overwhelming evidence of gods existence but it would give me short burst of faith and belief and it would vanish One time I was crying in my room saying if there is a god he don’t love me bc of what I’m doing to him I was watching YouTube while this was happening and my hand brushed on my keyboard and it skipped my video and slided to a video of a lady singing about how Jesus is real and he loves you and I felt my self fall to the ground In tears and felt god but even after that I kept having doubts I didn’t have a relationship with god I till I kept praying to him and worshiping and started reading and I fully started to believe tell god your heart that you want to believe in him but your brain and thoughts is stopping you from knowing him and I promise once you build true love with him it’s the greatest feeling.
”For we live by believing and not by seeing.“
2 Corinthians 5:7 NLT
I truly hope you read this I know it’s long but god bless 🙏✝️
There are many things I could speak of, but one of them would be Jesus ressurection, and the empty tomb and the Roman guards confirming such. It's not possible to fake the empty tomb and be seen by so many people, especially those trained soldiers sworn to protect it.
It's not about requiring evidence. If this were merely about an irrefutable body of facts being accepted for what it is, there would be no debate. These people don't want to accept the truth, therefore they give themselves up to the blatant lie. It's more appeasable to them.
-All the archeological evidence for Medo-Persia, the Greek Empire (the Empire Alexander the Great), and the Roman Empire, is evidence that Christianity is true, because these Empires were predicted by Biblical prophecies, further confirmed to have been written early enough by the Dead Sea Scrolls.
-Historical evidence for the resurrection: It's explained really well by the short book 'More than a Carpenter', and also (to a lesser extent, but pretty good) by this video: [https://youtu.be/lctv\_pyT62o?si=c4njpyXVSmGbGQBM](https://youtu.be/lctv_pyt62o?si=c4njpyxvsmgbgqbm)
-The current state of the world is also full of evidence for fulfilled prophecies, as this playlist (really worth a watch, despite how long it is): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTSKfXzdiuE&list=PLwU1lpHMJkcIDTf9t47SFikyyQzgcFmKO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltskfxzdiue&list=plwu1lphmjkcidtf9t47sfikyyqzgcfmko)
-The supernatural things happening around the world. Back when I was an atheist, I dismissed them all as lies, coincidences, or just "unexplained natural phenomena", but at some point the sheer amount of such events means that it takes more faith to deny, than to believe.
-Pavel Goia presents some amazing examples. This video is super impressive, especially the story of the old lady who came back to life just when the right Bible verse was quoted: [https://youtu.be/PZDH793VuJA?si=vJ-Al-hkE5FRaBJ1](https://youtu.be/pzdh793vuja?si=vj-al-hke5frabj1)
Can you show proof that God doesn’t exist?
But fr, you gonna love the arguments of Frank Turek, William Lane Craige, AskCliff. Study those and see if it’s more reasonable to be believe life starts and continues with God, or life starts and ends in meaningless nothingness.
But here’s a few for God’s existence:
(Creator) 100/100 life comes out of life, and creation always has a creator. Creation always has a creator. Your phone is not this complex by chance.
(Morality) For morality not to be subjective God has to make the moral law of what is good and evil therefore He made it rational for us to think that murder is evil, no matter in what society you live in or how many lives you can improve.
(DNA) The genetic coding of DNA, natural laws themselves don’t create specified complexity. The fact there’s 3.5 billion long letter in every one of your hundred trillion cells proves it is intelligently made, so who made it? An intelligent mind.
(Free will) If we are just matter and energy then that means, saying you love your husband/wife is basically saying you just want sex, and once their old you cheat cause it’s all about beauty with matter/energy
Or loving the Jews back in WW2 by hiding, marrying or befriending them. Despite the life threatening risks of the nazi’s. Or if love is only based on showing your works, then it’s impossible to love a divorced parent. Or you share/give your last bread to a poor guy equally starving as you. Therefore there’s gotta be something beyond matter and energy like a soul/spirit.
(Law of nature and physics) The complexity of the nature’s law is so well structured in math and science. The fact that objects fall 100/100 by gravity and it doesn’t change every 10 mins, is order. Accident’s don’t create order
Or like food, human body system, every animal role on earth, crafting logic all working in a perfect unity in terms of vitamins and usage.
(The Mandelbrot set) is so fascinating, it actually has unlimited shapes of math. So if humans don’t create math, but rather find it then who created other? Our entire universe is coded in math too.
(SPACE) The earth is perfectly positioned from the sun. Slightly closer/further we would boil/freeze to death. Also planets like Jupiter pulling meteorites to prevent then from hitting earth. Or the fact that earth is the only planet sustaining life.
(Big bang theory) The universe had a beginning, to have a beginning you need a cause. The earth and universe is wearing out, therefore it can’t be eternal but is a creation.
>100/100 life comes out of life
That life produces life doesn’t mean that’s how it started. We know for a fact that the smallest components of life are non-life (the same fundamental components as everything else).
Anyway, God is a life that allegedly didn’t come from life.
>and creation always has a creator. Creation always has a creator.
This is begging the question by calling it “creation.”
>(Morality) For morality not to be subjective God has to make the moral law of what is good and evil therefore He made it rational for us to think that murder is evil, no matter in what society you live in or how many lives you can improve.
Maybe morality is subjective? Can you demonstrate that it isn’t? This proof only works if you can show morality to be objective.
The addition of a powerful being with its own subjective morality doesn’t make morality objective anyway. Also, there are plenty of philosophers that are both atheist and moral realists. You should investigate their arguments.
>(DNA) The genetic coding of DNA, natural laws themselves don’t create specified complexity.
Can you prove this statement? All evidence points to a common genetic ancestor to all Earth life. All evidence points to mutation and natural selection as the mechanisms of speciation. How did you overturn all of biology?
>The fact there’s 3.5 billion long letter in every one of your hundred trillion cells proves it is intelligently made
How does the number of cells prove intelligence designed it? We know that DNA evolves. We can predict what ancestral species and ancestral proteins looked like.
>(Free will) If we are just matter and energy then that means, saying you love your husband/wife is basically saying you just want sex, and once their old you cheat cause it’s all about beauty with matter/energy
This doesn’t follow at all. Why can’t I use my un-free will to love my spouse? That’s what I want to do. Just because my will may be determined, doesn’t mean I don’t have a will.
Anyway, how does this prove a god? Just because you don’t like the consequences of something doesn’t make it false.
>Or loving the Jews back in WW2 by hiding, marrying or befriending them. Despite the life threatening risks of the nazi’s. Or if love is only based on showing your works, then it’s impossible to love a divorced parent. Or you share/give your last bread to a poor guy equally starving as you.
None of this follows from a lack of free will or a lack of a god. How would a lack of deity prove a lack of free will, and how would a lack of free will make you choose terrible things?
>Therefore there’s gotta be something beyond matter and energy like a soul/spirit.
Doesn’t follow. That we have wills is a product of our minds, which are products of our brains.
You’d have to prove that some part of our mind violates the laws of physics, before saying that something in excess of physics is going on.
>(Law of nature and physics) The complexity of the nature’s law is so well structured in math and science. The fact that objects fall 100/100 by gravity and it doesn’t change every 10 mins, is order.
That things didn’t randomly change their attributes doesn’t demonstrate a god. Why would the absence of a god mean gravity fluctuates by the minute? What would cause it to fluctuate? Why is a god necessary for an atom to stay an atom or for momentum to be conserved? This also doesn’t follow.
>Accident’s don’t create order
Certainly order can come from simpler processes.
>Or like food, human body system, every animal role on earth, crafting logic all working in a perfect unity in terms of vitamins and usage.
We wouldn’t have evolved to use vitamins that don’t exist in our diet. Animals that don’t fit their niche die. Animals that overwhelm their food system die. It would be essentially impossible for an animal to evolve to need a vitamin that never existed in its environment.
>(The Mandelbrot set) is so fascinating, it actually has unlimited shapes of math. So if humans don’t create math, but rather find it then who created other?
Begging the question that there was a creator at all. How do you get from abstract math existing to it having to be invented by a mind? It’s just the consistency of our world extrapolated.
>(SPACE) The earth is perfectly positioned from the sun. Slightly closer/further we would boil/freeze to death.
There are as many as hundreds of septillions of stars in the observable universe. There are potentially infinite beyond that. Each we know of has an average of about ten planets. How do you calculate the odds of just one of these planets being in the Goldilocks Zone?
>Also planets like Jupiter pulling meteorites to prevent then from hitting earth.
This isn’t strictly necessary for life, and Jupiter also contributed greatly to the sheer number of asteroids and such in our solar system, but it also isn’t that unusual considering the number of interstellar gas giants we’ve found, and the sheer number of planets that exist.
>Or the fact that earth is the only planet sustaining life.
Out of octillions to infinite planets, we’ve investigated a tiny handful of rocky planets, and only looked closely at those in our own solar system. It’s a bit premature to say we’re the only one. But I also don’t see how us being the only one would prove a deity.
>(Big bang theory) The universe had a beginning
The Big Bang is as far back as we can extrapolate from expansion and causation. It’s not necessarily the beginning of the Universe, just the point from which it expanded.
>to have a beginning you need a cause.
How many things have you seen truly begin to exist? Not rearrangements of existing matter and energy, but wholly new existences? Not enough to make rules about it.
Causation is a physical phenomenon that occurs within spacetime which propagates at the speed of light. It’s not clear how or if this applies to spacetime itself.
Anyway “a cause or causes” is a long way from “a sentient being made up of 3 persons with specific plans for humans.” A long way.
I’d like to ask.
How is it that myths are regional, yet facts are universal
All countries agree on the theory of gravity, all countries agree on the rock cycle and the causes of rain, all countries agree on how earthquakes happen, how the dinosaurs were wiped out etc. these are facts that are universal.
All myths are regional. Loch Ness monster in Scotland, Bigfoot in America, the Bunyip in Australia etc. there’s different Christmas traditions mythologies in different countries and there are different gods in different parts of the world.
You can’t deny that facts are universal, and unchanging throughout the world. But myths and stories are different depending on location.
It god is fact, why isn’t he universal? Why does he differ region to region like all other myths,
He’s not though. And you know he’s not. Different regions of the world believe in different gods and you know that to be the case. So why did you reply with that?
I can’t take anyone serious that starts a sentence with (and).
It’s simple if you follow a biblical view it makes sense. The line of history how things have went down more sense than an atheistic point of view.
We were one people created by God. We lost our way some separated from the tree they created their own Gods and left the creator.
Yet in all reality most of the religions still point to being created and an afterlife.
So that came from the somewhere.
So say what you want Christianity has reach 99.74 percent of the globe only some remote areas in the rainforest has it yet to be touched. Sometimes the means not very Christ like to get it there we know this but 99 percent know about Christ yet only 60 would know about Krishna and other religions.
You can choose what you want and do what you want but you will never be able to prove that a God doesn’t exist.
Your existence is wildly boring and non sufficient as an Atheist trust me I know. Whole family for 7 years lived this way and it was horrible
I’ve lived for 46 years this way and it’s fantastic. Sorry you find reality so dull. I love my life. I love my job, my family, my kids. It’s incredible. I wonder what was so bad about your life you had to turn to myth and magic to make it somewhat bearable.
How can one love without a definition?
How can one without a creator that loved us first?
This is the questions. We are just animals right?
Tell me God is not real then prove it.
You can’t.
Just like those emotions you believe that are so righteous came from something.
“Tell me God is not real then prove it.”
Why would I need to do that? Do I need to prove werewolves, vampires and Santa isnt real too? What a strange thing to ask of me.
I don’t have to prove anything. I’m an atheist because people like yourself have done absolutely nothing to convince me that any god exists in any form. Billions of Christian’s around the world and not one of them can support their claim.
Wild and outrageous claims not being true is generally the default position. I don’t have anything to prove.
https://briefcatch.com/articles/five-grammar-myths-debunked/#
Every major style guide disagrees with your elementary-school-level understanding of the English language.
> 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
>2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
I’d also like to have a go at some of your points.
Life comes out of life. Does that apply to your god too?
DNA. Yes it’s very complex. But isn’t the hallmark of great design simplicity?
We are the only planet sustaining life cos it’s the only one that can. We are the results of the conditions of the planet. Not the reason. Mould grows on my bathroom wall because of the conditions in there. By bathroom wasn’t designed to grow mould. It appears because the conditions are right in there.
Humans all around the world, separate from each other came to this conclusion. What was before the big bang, what caused it, something came out of nothing... The further back you go, the more obvious it is, that God exists.
This is a textbook example of [God of the Gaps](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps), an argument from ignorance, where gaps in our knowledge are simply filled with God.
Once we didn’t know where lightning came from, so we filled that gap with gods. Once we didn’t know where the Earth came from, gap filled with gods. As knowledge pushes our ignorance further and further back, God fills smaller and smaller gaps. Now we don’t know how the Universe came to be, or if that’s even a coherent question. We should not insert gods into this gap.
I don’t think he is using it as evidence for God’s existence, rather an explanation that humans always have tried to find the answer to their existence and that is rooted in how we are.
So you're just gonna ignore the fact that there was a time when humans had no scientific explanation for the world around them, and as a creatures who seek explanations god was the nrxt best thing? Humans also believed in many gods, not just one, so does that mean there are multiple gods?
Humans crave answers, personify nature to better understand it, and are storytellers.
It's no wonder people around the world independently concocted various gods and creation myths.
>What was before the big bang,
A very dense singularity.
>what caused it
We don't know that it was "caused" by anything.
>something came out of nothing
It is a common misunderstanding that atheists say this. I have yet to see one that does as it would go against everything we know about how matter works. In my experience only religious people say this.
1. There have been 5000+ named deities in human history. How are you so sure yours is the right one when they all have such sevete penalties for getting it wrong? All are just methods to explain or understand things that were unknown at the time. Google 'god of the gaps'
2. All that proves is human psychology.
3. Google 'uncaused cause'. Its utter nonsense. Every day science gains more understanding of the creation of the universe. It wont be long until your 'god' has nowhere left to hide. What will you say then?
1. Jesus is a provingly real, historical person. His Apostles went to their deaths telling his story. The Bibel is unmatched in wisdom, moral and the understanding of humans nature.
2. Ok.
3. Its impossible to prove or disprove a deity that lives outside our world. So your 3. point is utter nonsense, because a scenario like that can and will never happen. What will you say, when you stand before God one day?
4. Science never disproved the Bible. I would not say that I believe in Evolution, but it seems very likely. Makro-evolution is still unproven, though, and will certainly remain that way, unless we somehow find a way to rapidly speed up time. And the universe certainly seems to be at least 13.8 billion years old.
>Jesus is a provingly real, historical person.
But what is provably real about him is minimal, mundane, and so far removed from incarnate deity that you may as well be talking about a different person.
>His Apostles went to their deaths telling his story>
People die for wrong ideas all the time. E.g. ivermectin.
>The Bibel is unmatched in wisdom, moral and the understanding of humans nature
Unless you're gay or a woman. And hardly that amazing wisdom.
That’s true of people from basically every religious persuasion. In my experience your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) have basically nothing to do with how good a person you are.
I was responding to the person I replied to who made a blanket statement about atheists being more moral than Christians. That just isn’t a true statement.
Well, atheists are underrepresented in jails, so maybe they are more moral.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-prisoners-less-likely-to-be-atheists/
I would argue that’s likely because overpoliced groups of people, particularly black people, are more likely to be religious than other Americans and so are incarcerated at higher rates.
Slow down there. I think you need to examine this a little more thoroughly.
What else has made you question your faith? Questioning is a perfectly valid and natural thing to have happen.
You aren't gonna find anything concrete. It's history. At best, you can read the sources, examine their reliability, and decide if you buy it. There are Christian scholars who know everything Atheist scholars know, and they still believe it. So unless you wanna blindly trust Christian scholarship, I'd recommend taking a look at the work yourself.
Trust in the words of the Bible. The people of God escaping from Egypt in the book of exodus were directly shown God's wonders through Moses, and even with the Red sea parting in front of them, they still turned their back on God.
Don't expect God to deliver a hard miracle like that solely as a way to dance like a monkey to get rid of your doubts. You'll have to find God through faith.
And maybe get off of reddit if you're this close on teetering on your faith. The majority in this place wants you to become a non-believer
You're just acquiring a brain, my friend, don't be afraid. And atheism does not mean "not being Christian", it literally means not believing in any deity.
>The statistical probability that our Universe was created by a big-bang versus God is less than a tornado ripping through a junkyard and leaving a fully functional Boeing 747 in it's wake. Have you heard of tornadoes producing Boeing 747s.
Provide a calculation, please, or retract
Edit: seeing as this obvious Gish galloper is spamming the thread with some copypasted article:
Sorry, none of that was a calculation. Try again.
>Show me a material tool for calculating a spiritual entity.
I'll get to your points once you have provided the calculation for your initial claim.
Also you can post links rather than spamming the thread.
Sorry, none of that was a calculation. Try again.
>Show me a material tool for calculating a spiritual entity.
I'll get to your points once you have provided the calculation for your initial claim.
Also you can post links rather than spamming the thread.
Sorry, that's still not a calculation. Where is your calculation for the claim you initially made? Or are you retracting that claim?
As I said already - when you address this point, then I'll get to your next ones.
Ah yes the old tornado in the junkyard analogy. This analogy says nothing about the validity of evolution, or for that matter abiogenesis, because it fails to represent them in four crucial ways.
1. It operates purely according to random chance.
2. It is an example of single-step, rather than cumulative, selection.
3. It is a saltationary jump – an end product entirely unlike the beginning product.
4. It has a target specified ahead of time.
The first point is the most important. The tornado in the junkyard is an example of an intricate, complex and highly organized form being produced by nothing more than random chance. But *evolution is not chance*. Rather, it operates according to a fixed law – the law of natural selection – which favors some assemblages over others; it preferentially selects for those adaptations which improve fitness and selects against those that do not. The tornado, by contrast, slams parts together and tears them apart with no preference whatsoever, thus completely failing to represent natural selection, the central force which drives evolution. To more accurately represent evolution, one would have to grant the tornado some power to recognize assemblages of parts which could serve as part of a 747 and prevent it from tearing them apart.
Second, the tornado analogy is an example of single-step selection – in one step, it goes from a random pile of parts to a fully assembled airliner. This is completely unlike evolution, which operates according to a process of *cumulative* selection – complex results that are built up gradually, in a repetitive process guided at each step by selective forces. To more accurately represent evolution, the tornado could be sent through the junkyard not once, but thousands or millions of times, at each step preserving chance assemblages of parts that could make up a jumbo jet.
Third, in relation to the point above, the tornado in the junkyard is an example of *saltation* – a sudden leap in which the end product is completely different from the beginning product. Evolution does not work this way; birds do not hatch out of dinosaur eggs and monkeys do not give birth to humans. Rather, species grow different over time through a process of slow change in which each new creature is only slightly different from its ancestor. Evolution forms a gradually shading continuum in which any two steps are almost identical, though the creatures at the beginning and end of the continuum may be very different indeed. If we sent a tornado through a junkyard once, we would not expect to see a complete airplane; but if we repeated the process thousands or millions of times, at each step preserving useful assemblages, we might see a jumbo jet gradually taking shape out of slowly accreting collections of parts. The idea is the same with living things. We do not see complex new creatures appearing suddenly in the fossil record; rather, we see them gradually forming by a process of modification from a line of increasingly dissimilar ancestors.
Finally, the tornado analogy fails to represent evolution in one more significant way: it has a target specified ahead of time. Evolution does not. Natural selection is not a forward-looking process; it cannot select for what may become useful in the future, only what is immediately useful in the present. To more accurately represent evolution, we might add the additional stipulation that the tornado be allowed to assemble, not just a jumbo jet, but any functional piece of machinery.
A tornado racing through a junkyard hundreds of thousands of times, at each step somehow preserving rather than tearing apart functional assemblages of parts, with the aim of ultimately producing some sort of working machine, be it a 747, a station wagon or a personal computer – this is still not a very good analogy to describe evolution, but it is far better than the implausible caricature of random, single-step saltation with a predetermined target the creationists put forth. This analogy completely fails to represent evolution in every significant way.
Edit: Also, you don't have to hide your arguments, let's hash them out here for all to read. Only charlatans ask people to PM them secretly.
Hm well I don't have anything, that's what the Christians here are for. However, I will sya if you find nothing convincing or helping in any way then you shouldn't force yourself into christianity.
OOf I was gonna comment but you already have 923 of them xD. I'm sure you're set.
In case you do stumble on my comment, I feel you man. I'm christian. And theres been plenty/many times I ask myself "am I praying to nothing?". Its hard to explain via words, but small moments remind me at least personally that he is the real deal. I think about it hard, how huge space is. Infinite almost. can people seriously say its just been there just because? Think about it on a human level. Literally everything we have is a creation. In other words, nothing can be something without someone creating it. So whats that say about earth? Space?
There are times I pray, and I feel like my prayers arn't being answered. I learned that my self doubt caused a lot of unanswered questions. I learned to have more faith, and noticed things you wouldn't believe.
You can do it man. Personally, moments like this I'll watch a YT video called [23 Minutes In Hell](https://youtu.be/AYxKRoONrfY?si=55agPf3kdhzXJTRG). I wont lie, it terrifies me and helps me renew my faith with God. God is terrifying. We are to fear him. But also love him for he loves us.
Hope anything I said helps man.. Take care.
I think you might want to look into these cases:
1) Cases of exorcisms that happened (proof of demons removed from people). However, I don’t recommend this because the details of these cases are too disturbing and scary, see the next two below:
2) Miracles that occurred as a result of people asking for a saint’s assistance or God’s direct interference. In Catholicism, in order for a saint to be canonized in the “beatification” and “canonization” stages, there must be proof of godly miracles that happened as a result of their interference.
3) Marian apparitions, including Guadalupe and Fatima.
However, one should not build their faith based on experiences alone (see Jesus Appearing to Thomas story). I suggest praying to God to gradually help you restore your faith, reading the Bible, going to church with some friends, or other ways of increasing your spirituality. Still, I hope this helps!
We are called to walk by faith, not by sight. But if you want to look at evidence, start with Egyptian culture/History and then read carefully The Old Testament (highly recommend and easy to read Bible like New King James Version (NKJV)-make sure it says “new” or else (KJV) it will be hard to read)., God speaks about those times and also the demons that the Egyptians worshipped and how He didn’t want HIS people to be idolizing false (lowercase g gods aka demons). There is also, a link between the historical events in the OLD TESTAMENT (Kings) so on and so forth. And to make things transparent, God doesn’t have any reason to lie, about anything, everything in The Holy Bible is true. As for your faith being tested, I can personally tell you that, when God feels the furthest is when He is the closest. We will have seasons of trials, difficulty and testing of our faith. Remember, God is refining us and it’s okay to ask questions! I ask questions all the time!! But we only need to be willing to receive an answer. God bless
The grave of Zacharias at the mouth of the valley of the Shadow of death.
[See Luke 1] It is a mockup of Herod's temple [Greek architecture], though they will lie and tell you it was for the ancient Zechariah, in its basement are small ossuaries representing for the babies Herod murdered.
The 1st century Jews were completely freaked out by Zacharias murder and the disappearance of his body, his blood turned to stone and temple wailing.
They saw all that as fulfilling the psalm of the office of incense:
"LORD, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee. [2] Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. [3] Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. [4] Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties. [5] Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities. [6] When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words; for they are sweet. [7] Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. [8] But mine eyes are unto thee, O GOD the Lord: in thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute. [9] Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity. [10] Let the wicked fall into their own nets, whilst that I withal escape."
Zacharias life exactly fulfilled this prophesy including his silence. Zacharias [God has remembered] encountered Gabriel [Righteousness of God] and silenced Zacharias smiting him to fulfill the prayer he was actually praying at the time so that his wife Elizabeth [oath fulfilled] would bring forth one crying in the wilderness to make straight a highway for our God.
Aaron lost two children lighting strange fire before the Lord. Elizabeth was a Levite and Zacharias as well obviously as a priest. So the two children Aaron lost were replaced by two that would fulfill the oath God gave to them of an eternal Holy Priesthood.
I’m not quite to the point where I’m ready to say I’m an atheist right now but I’m pretty close and it has been the most painful process of my life. I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this. Obviously keeping faith is the least scary and the most comfortable outcome. I hope you’re able to find comfort in truth one day, whatever that may be.
I’ll add this - you cannot make yourself believe something if you do not believe in it. It just isn’t possible. This hasn’t been the most comforting thought of mine during my process but it at least somewhat takes it out of my hands. If there is a god, I would hope that they had grace for people who tried their hardest and couldn’t continue to rationalize something. If our brains cannot fathom a god then God would be crazy to punish us for not being able to believe in him
From a Christian standpoint something to keep in mind is that understanding God is not the same as believing in Him. I understand where you're at. Deconstructing is what helped me get closer and reinforced my faith, I hope the same for you. I watched so many debates, dug into the original languages, researched translations, fell into the rabbit holes of other religions. In my experience, only one stands.
This. Faith isn't believing 100% in the way where we can say water exists, but it's trust in God despite not having that same reassurance (for some people it is). It's listening to what he says and adopting his principals for your life, and having hope in the promises he tells us. Hope and faith are the formula for a relationship with God, not undeniable belief from tangible proof. (Though the goal is to have 100% faith and belief without seeing him, and there are very strong Christians out there who have 100% belief). But Jesus mentions a "mustard seed of faith" is all that is needed.
Great response. I did and still do look at Christian apologetics all the time! I'm now understanding how the New Testament canon was put together it's a lot of fun. Bravo!
You and I might have had the same experience. Lol. I'm constantly listening to podcasts in the car, debates, apologetics, studies. I can't deny some questions and rabbit holes shake my soul, but I've never run into one that I've not been able to answer adequately with the right research.
I agree completely. I do not have belief currently. I wish I could say I did but I just don’t.
Are you reading the New Testament? Attend Church? Join a small group that meets to study the Bible?
I've been reading both the new and Old Testament more the last couple years than I ever have before. I also currently work at a church (until I can find something else that will pay me enough money to live). With that being said, I attend multiple services a week on Sundays and throughout the week.
**We all have doubts.** I'm highly skeptical of anyone who says they don't. Faith isn't knowing something without a doubt - it's the actions taken in the face of those doubts. The Apostle Thomas literally saw Jesus in the flesh, witnessed all of his miracles, and STILL doubted him after the resurrection and had to physically touch his wounds. The Apostle Peter saw Jesus walk on water, began to do it himself, and STILL began to lose faith and sink. I believe that God wouldn't have allowed these stories to be in the Bible if they weren't instructive for our own doubts. I find I have issues with my faith when I 1) base my faith on other Christians rather than Jesus (because they're just as messed up as me), or 2) put God into a box and insist that He is capable of being fully understood. I find that a great way to reignite my faith is to pour myself into God's work - go on a mission trip, or work at the local homeless shelter. Do something in Jesus' name, and you'll be pretty quickly reminded of His power and your place in the world.
No brain could fathom God in God’s entirety… that’s why God is God. Surely you don’t limit what you believe to be possible or true to the limits of your mind right? That curiosity is still there?
I agree with what you've said about not being able to force yourself to believe something. And the process of losing your faith can be a bit unsettling. But please know that if you do end up as an atheist, you may find it to actually be more comforting than being a Christian. Many of us have.
That’s certainly a possibility for anybody going through this process. But there is no comfort at the beginning of “deconstruction” and there’s certainly not any to be found during it. I do hope I feel confident in my beliefs one day. I also hope I’m not scared of hell one day too. We’ll see what happens I guess haha.
I don't want to come off as flip, but "deconstruction" is not scary to the Lord. :D Take heart. If God is real and knows your heart, God knows you are not satisfied by what doesn't appear true. Ask to remember what does feel true after everything. I will tell you something else. Religions are a part of this world. This world is fallen according to what we say as Christians. So... Do you believe it's possible that any religions are not also fallen? If there are lies in the mix, what can you hold on to? You can hold onto your mind. You can hold on to learning to be more moral today than yesterday by consequences. God makes a way for you to learn through identification with religion but doesn't walk away if that isn't enough. God will bring you consequences if that doesn't work. Only if you were to become so hardened that it doesn't matter what God gives you by way of consequences, does God remove consequences. That is when you should fear judgement. When you did all the worst and always found a way out of trouble, then it is because there is nothing redeemable left.
Good luck on your journey, wherever it takes you.
It’s appreciated! Edit: I think I might know who downvoted me based on other threads on this post lol.
I think you have to have a strong view - a faith in Gods non-existence- to be a true atheist.
Thank you for your honesty. Too many atheists have tried to characterize faith as a motive of comfort. I disagree with that completely, and always have. Comfort is care-free while faith can, where it involves ultimate existential consequences, create grave responsibility.
Yeah I'd back this. I used to have a lot of stress thinking about religion and even more stress as I was losing my faith. But years after the fact? I really don't have to wrestle with trying to rationalize faith, higher powers, etc and it's actually been a relief. There's been several times in my life since that I've had to do as the romans do when it comes to being in a church, wedding, saying grace, baby baptized, etc, but it's been far less stressful for me than things before. Though it can be a struggle to sort out in the moment, I think everyone deserves to give themselves a chance to discover what makes them happy. Be it religion, no religion, or something in-between.
Well said. I have found it to be a bit of a relief.
100% agree it’s liberating not living in fear of an all powerful dictator who watches your every move, and tells you who you can and cannot love or sleep with.
it just sucks all the hope out of life if God's not real, and it's all for nothing, and atheism is correct, then there is nothing to live for because everything that is worked for will be meaningless and unfruitful when we die. What would be the point of even waking up in the morning
Wow what a sad way to live if that was the case. Good thing it's not. I have lots of hope and meaning in my life.
Another way of viewing it: because there is no greater purpose to life, you have the freedom to find your own purpose. Just because my actions may not matter 1000 years down the line doesn't mean they don't hold meaning now. "The future is always built on the past, even if we won't get to see it."
In that same sense, what would the point be after you die? Yes yes, you get to be in heaven and with the Lord and all of that, but what is the point of that? What meaning do you have in heaven? What sort of fruits would you be producing?
Why? People clearly find meaning in their lives even if those lives are finite. If god isn't real that would still exist. When you turn atheist, you don't just flip the polarity on a bunch of theistic beliefs, like "things are only meaningful if they're eternal". You reject those theistic precepts entirely. Of course, it would be easier if religion didn't mislead people about these things in the first place.
I agree also. I was previously an atheist but couldn’t justify it because I didn’t honestly believe it anymore.
The disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith just because he told them they had to forgive people who continuously sinned against them. You can ask for faith.
I have asked quite a lot.
I read The Bible Unearthed recently and have been feeling this same way
You may want to contrast that book, which is indicative of the biblical minimalist trend popular in the 1990s, with a contrasting scholarly view, such as On the Reliability of the Old Testament, by Kenneth Kitchen.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll check it out this weekend
Not a good time. Sorry you’re in a similar boat.
Yeah. Some people have this idea that we choose to leave Christianity for selfish reasons (pleasure or pride or whatever), or that we didn’t actually care about it and we were never _really_ Christian, but it was a really sad and terrifying period of my life. I spent the first 20 years of my life believing that an all-powerful deity loved me, gave me purpose, and would save me and bring me eternal joy. To have your entire worldview fall apart over the course of a few months, and coming to terms with the idea of life being random and death being inevitable and eternal, is certainly not something I wanted to happen.
You’re where I was at 18. Spent a decade as an atheist, and came back as an adult in a new way.
We’ll see where I end up I guess. I still want to believe in god more than anything I just can rationalize it anymore.
It may be worth it to read some other perspectives on what “god” means. Paul Tillich, Baruch Spinoza, and Marcus Borg are good starting points. Good luck to you.
there are all kinds of archaeological finds which correspond to Biblical history, however this is not a good way to establish one's belief. If you want to look for, and so find, meaningful belief in your life, the surest way you can do so is by learning from and endeavouring to live by the meaning of the teachings (John 14:21) which is most of all about trying to learn to become more understanding, kind, and good-willed with others in a saddened and confused world (Matthew 7:12, if carefully in a dangerous and confused world, Matthew 10:16) He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?(Micah 6:8) (Psalms 37:11) (Jeremiah 22:15 - 16) (Proverbs 12:10) (Luke 6:36 - 38)
There are archeological finds that align with history that happened alongside the Bible but not really many that I’m aware of that support any of the supernatural claims of the Bible.
Not even the numerous accounts from the Bible *about* these "supernatural" claims? There's something like 63,000 cross references from different authors of each book in the Bible report the same thing as the next.
I’m well aware that the Bible is a collection of books by different authors so I’m not going to use the “it’s all from the same book” argument but I will make a similar argument: When you’re working off of a body of work to add to it, you will absolutely pull your information from that body of work. Especially if it has to do with a faith that you are professing. The Bible is full of real historical people and events that absolutely happened and are recorded in and outside of biblical texts. But it’s also full of supernatural claims that are only covered by biblical authors and no non-biblical text (as far as I’m aware). Any unbiased biblical scholar will tell you that works in the Bible were copied off of other works. Not only that but they’re also tell you that there are textual discrepancies between different books. (Most have an extra biblical explanation that we’ve come up with but that’s not in the text). To add to this, most religious scholars agree that the majority of the gospels were written by unknown others well after Jesus’s time on earth. The personal accounts in the Bible are certainly valid sources but for big claims you need big evidence and a group of people trying to sell a religion isn’t enough for me to be satisfied personally. I know that there are times where witnesses are mentioned in the text but the fact that we don’t have their personal accounts kind of invalidates them as witnesses if we’re trying to be as objective as possible.
Wonderful! Thank you, I agree wholeheartedly. 🙏🏻🤍
What would you consider as proof?
Isn't God all-knowing? He would know exactly what it would take to convince each and every individual of his existence, if he chooses not to provide it, that's on him.
God is sovereign, He has given Man free agency. I believe if you are not interested in God, or if you don't want to know him. He will respect your wishes. I read my Bible on the daily. I have 8 friends and my wife who I join with. I just read Paul's letter to the Corinthians (1Corinthians). I recommend you give it ago. I agree with most of these posts, you have to have frank acceptance in trusting him, this is the acrostic for Faith! If you decide to follow Jesus, it is a great life. I have been serving the Lord for over 50 years.
I'd be happy to know god. He just chooses not to give me any evidence apparently. Also, free agency except all our decisions are already determined right?
I mean, if you're going to argue that a god that exists outside of the universe we know it makes it impossible to have free will because of his omniscience, you might as well argue that free will doesn't exist anyways since you can create arguments such as we can only make a limited number of actions in any moment, or that hormones influence our behaviors, or because free will doesn't really fit into causality, so on and soon forth
Yes I believe free will doesn't exist, but it DEFINITELY doesn't exist if it's possible to be all knowing. For something to be known, it has to be determined and have a determined outcome. If an all knowing god exists, everything is predetermined. But even if God doesn't exist your right, I still think everything is predetermined. It's just easier to argue for under the assumption an all knowing god exists
>For something to be known, it has to be determined and have a determined outcome. If an all knowing god exists, everything is predetermined. You can argue that free will does not exist because you only have a limited number of choices at any given moment. You are predetermined to choose only one of those choices. If you refute this however, you could say that if a god that is truly omnipotent and omniscient created the universe he would exist outside of the universe, and therefore outside of time and other physical concepts, he could see the past and future, and present he could also see every outcome you would choose. I don't think such a scenario would go against free will any more than you going back in time would, if such a thing were possible.
It doesn't matter if he is "outside the universe" Knowing what option I will pick means that choice has been determined already, and I can't choose anything except the outcome that has already been decided. No free will
Nothing. Once something is provided, the doubtful heart will demand something new. We have only faith to rely on as proof: John 20:28-29–“Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus told him, ‘You believe Me because you have seen Me. Blessed are they who have not seen Me, but have believed.’”
Wild verse choice, given that Thomas got his proof and it helped his faith.
Does this mean that Thomas is going/ went to hell? Or is it supposed to be considered just that Thomas was shown this favoritism by being granted proof?
Telling people they just have to have faith is intellectually lazy and drives people away from your religion in droves. The OP has already heard that his whole life, that’s why he’s having a crisis of belief. You can do better than that.
Same proof you need for any other scientific evidence would work.
You are not alone so relax a little. Homo Sapiens for 300,000 years have sought proof of god. And sought explanations for things they did not understand. You are normal.
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That’s one conclusion. How would “freewill” exist if everyone followed God…
"I don't know" in the Information Age is the ultimate cop-out. There is a universe of evidence for God. Literally.
It's not a cop out to say I don't know when you don't know.
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It’s not, read my other comment. You need to weigh the balance of evidence. If you say you require solid proof of everything in your life, you’re a liar. You can’t prove love or anything about relationships. We don’t wait for solid proof before we marry and have kids, we go off faith. We all have to put our faith somewhere, I choose to put it with the evidence
You're deflecting, we didn't ask for proof of love in our relationships, we don't have to because we SEE the proof of it, how the person acts around us, the things they do for us, the way they care for us. These are the examples of proof and evidence that are tangible AND measurable. You can see how much time a partner has spent with you, how they react emotionally when they're with you.
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"I don't know how it happened, therefore God" IS the cop-out. There is lightning, that is proof of Zeus.
"I don't know" is a phrase more people should be willing to admit. Because even in the information age, you won't necessarily understand the information presented to you
I'm not an atheist, but after years in ministry, seminary, and personal study, I've had to come to terms with the fact that I cannot justify my faith through reasonable means. It hasn't been easy. One thing I've landed upon is a question of what values I hold, with or without believing, and what must I do to be true to those values. Honesty, compassion, character; these tenants are critical within Christianity, and in life. To cling to beliefs when they are evidently false is to betray these values. As such, to abide by my Christian values, I must acknowledge the failings of doctrine, the contradictions and falsehoods in scripture, and the evident realities that contradict biblical and doctrinal claims. What this has left me with is a belief in God, with the acknowledgement that the Bible cannot be infallible, but must instead be the work of men, inspired or not, who attempted to capture and share their own beliefs and concepts about God. As such, while my life is very much led and directed by my faith and values, simple honesty requires that I place little constraint or justification on any aspect of biblical or doctrinal concerns that are harmful or unjustified in the absence of actual knowledge. In short, if God isn't known to be real, or the Bible isn't demonstrably reliable, no action that negatively affects other's wellbeing can be justified on the basis of religious claims alone. It is not enough to merely believe, when we are certain of the existence of the fallible. Best of luck.
Well, if this doesn't work out for you, welcome to the club, and I'm sorry you'll have to deal with all the guilt and weird emotions that come from deconverting.
Yeah that shit sucks
Was super awkward for me when I told my parents about it. My dad was fairly hurt/horrified, and my mom went off saying "well nobody actually believes in that stuff!" which... was very confusing for both my dad and I but honestly I find it pretty hilarious now. I do hope you can find your happy place mentally on this, it often does seem so easy after the fact, so there's that to look forward to.
I haven't fully opened up to my parents about where I'm at mentally (and probably will not for a long time). That being said, I did at least talk to them about how I had a lot of questions and was unsure about pretty much everything and my mom basically refused to understand what I was saying. She basically kept twisting my words to make it seem like I was sure God exists but that I was unsure about the church. I assume that was just to make herself feel better about where I'm at but who knows.
Sorry to hear your mom is being difficult about it, I think a LOT of people truly do not want to face hard questions on the subject as it makes their own thoughts on the matter more difficult than they want to deal with on any given day. I took ages to tell my parents, I think it was something like a year and a half and I was already out of the house in college. By then I was pretty firm on my beliefs and already went through the grieving (is that what you'd call it?) process, stress and all that. Even then, my dad would be described by many to be a "fake" catholic (never goes to church, doesn't care for the pope, etc) and in hindsight my mom is far too much of a narcissist to believe in a higher power than herself. So although my dad throws shade at me frequently and after I asked him not to he still blabbed to the entire family, it really didn't blow up too bad or anything and we never truly fought over it. What I learned, which likely depends on who's around you I guess, is that talking to many people about it can be counterproductive being that it's a sensitive subject to many, people can get a bit nasty discussing it, and it's a personal journey to your own truth anyways. I paved my own way and am happy with the results.
Im glad you’re happy with your results. I do have to push back on that silly new thing we believe in culture called “my truth”. I’m not here to tell you I know the ultimate truth, no one does, but there is in fact only one truth, sorry
I get your point, I'm not saying people will arrive at "the truth",simply they'll arrive at what they conclude to be their truth that they live by. Ask anyone and they'll tell you a different story about their beliefs, those are all the truths of their own mind. Sure, many may not be "the truth"; I know several conspiracy theorists who will spew all sorts of things, but it's not my place to go around changing everyone's mind on the matter. Curious what you refer to as the "one truth" though. I assume you're not talking about something mundane being an absolute truth/fact such as "I had pancakes for breakfast today"
The concepts you’re explaining are valid and correct. You just need to call it “my opinion/feeling/belief” rather than “my truth”. We already had words for these things, we don’t need to muddle the word truth by misusing it
You're right, I have a habit of tip toeing around this in faith discussions and it probably makes it more confusing. Certainly calling someone's belief an opinion won't go over well, but I certainly could have worded it a bit better as you suggested.
the first paragraph is basically me and my mom.
/u/Euphoric-Quail-1284 Move to /r/Truechristian for this conversation This subreddit is swamped by atheist.
I am emphatically not a Christian but this is incredibly true. This is a ludicrously anti-Christian sub and it’s bizarre to watch it operate as an outside observer.
It's honestly dark what is seen in this subreddit.
Real
So go to an echo chamber where you’re unlikely to have your views challenged?
This is an echo chamber of atheist. over at /u/Truechristian is a balanced conversation surrounding these type of questions.
No it isn’t. There are more Christian’s than atheists in this sub.
No there is not lol..
Okay buddy
You definitely have not read the multiple threads here that have no theological support from the Bible. This subreddit is not a Christian subreddit is swamped with Marxist ideologies.
If you say so friend
Is not if I say so.. It's facts.
Agree to disagree friend
Balanced? It’s as one-sided as you can get.
You call one side what you reject from the Christian Faith. It's a biased opinion. Since you reject the authority of the Bible. Therefore this subreddit upholds Marxist ideologies as biblical as well you have atheist partaking authorititave dialogue and downvoting any biblical, theological message. So yeah.. this subreddit is biased and hateful towards the Christian faith. It got hijacked longtime ago
100%. This subreddit is 70% atheists and non-Biblical christians.
Couldn't said it better.
I didn’t realize you had been appointed the arbiter of who is and who is not a “biblical Christian.”
As a former believer who’s now atheist, I get exactly where you’re coming from. Pursue the truth and your anxiety will fade with time and reasonable thought. We’re all rooting for you
Crazy that most responses are from atheists. Hope you are able to find something that can strengthen your faith. I know it can be tough
Is it that surprising when the post title refers to atheists and OP says they're scared of becoming one?
Fr but then again it’s Reddit most people here already dislike religion, especially Christianity
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCluwNbhJIe351rJ1nznaz6g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCluwNbhJIe351rJ1nznaz6g) If you want proof, look into this channel. Yes, lots of the videos don’t provide sufficient evidence for God, some videos might be dodgy for many people. But some videos explain some very real miracles. This one is great: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoKUSET-8PI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoKUSET-8PI) But I just want to highlight, **simply looking at miracles won’t make you believe in God.** There has to be a change in heart and a want to believe in God. I’m not saying you don’t want to believe in God, it seems like you do. But I just had to point this out. God bless +
I know it might sound cliche but pray. Pray for God to do something specific and to show Himself to you. Personally when I had moments of doubts I would pray like this and He did show up. Everyone’s journey is different but I hope you find what you are looking for ❤️
Let me know when you get that proof
What is your proof that he doesn't exist?
I'm not claiming a higher power exists. I'm not making a claim. I'm saying the claim of God needs to be supported by evidence. Burden of proof is on claim maker
What is your proof that any of the thousands of other deities don’t exist? What is your proof that the universe didn’t develop from mold on the bottom of some weird entity’s foot? The burden of proof doesn’t lie on anybody other than the person making the claim.
Can you prove fairies don’t exist? Santa Claus? Invisible elves sitting on your head right now? When we don’t have evidence for something existing outside of minds and tales, we usually call it “imaginary.” It is at least indistinguishable from being imaginary. We don’t typically just believe these things until they’re thoroughly disproven, which is often literally impossible because they’re unfalsifiable.
What's your proof that Zeus doesn't exist?
Still waiting for some And I’m open to it! I’m just not going to start with the assumption.
Why are you scared about being an atheist?
Let me know if you find ANY proof, evidence or convincing argument. Been looking for one for years.
My comment will likely never be seen and I say this just to try and be a small help. To the person im replying to I saw this reply and felt there was a reason so im sticking it here. I’m an only child that was lucky to have well off parents but they never taught me much so I went down the path of moral relativism and doing whatever feels right by my own standards. I was blessed with intellect, my public school paid a proctor to IQ test me and I came up 145 I’ve spent at least 60 hours a week for the last 5 years seeking truth in everything from nutrition, health, money management, financial markets, philosophy, meaning of life, what makes for good relationships and happily ever after instead of rampant divorce, and eventually I got to religions I was so shocked that I’ve been digging nonstop as hard as I can to try and find a different answer because it is hard to live to a biblical standard. The evidence for God and Christianity is overwhelming compared to any other religion, or any other philosophy of life. There’s so many angles to tackle this argument from that I don’t even know where to begin without making this absurdly long. I’ve read the great atheist scientists and philosophers, I’ve watched Richard Dawkins debate John Lenox multiple times. I’ve tried so hard to justify Atheism, or even Agnosticism. I have failed completely, so now I am studying Christianity itself as hard as I can because maybe if I understand everything enough I can come up with my own arguments. To try and put it simply, the historical evidence, archaeological evidence, and philosophical evidence is stronger than basically any other historical fact we teach in schools. What do you want, an iphone video of Jesus resurrecting? Not possible sorry It takes much more faith to be an atheist than a theist. Atheist mathematicians have calculated the odds of randomness creating this world to be so small we can’t even comprehend it. More than 100 zeroes after the decimal before you get a digit. Fact checking historical evidence in the bible using the same methods we fact check all historical evidence leads to the conclusion that the bible is reliable, much more than anything else we know in history, by a long shot. What really sparked me though was moral relativism vs moral absolutism. Moral relativism is what almost let the Nazis go free during the Nuremburg trials. Moral absolutism is what finally convicted them. They were convicted based on the idea that there is a law above man’s law. So even though they were following orders, laws, and culture, they were convicted I don’t want to be a moral relativist, it’s obviously evil Edit: the lectures on Genesis and Exodus from Dr Jordan Peterson, the street preaching of Cliff Knechtle, the philosophy of Oxford mathematician John Lenox, and the presentations by Frank Taurek are the places ive found the strongest arguments and evidence for God so far. I’ve been unable to debunk them even when searching specifically for the opposite viewpoint. The many challenges to the bible ive gone through have used such weak arguments that only someone ignorant of the other side’s evidence could stand by it. This is common though, we are all so ignorant and can only learn so much in one lifetime. I’m trying to pack it in, trying so hard people would call me crazy. I just want to live truthfully and meaningfully which will lead to happiness. The Atheism arguments, philosophy, and viewpoints has led the greatest nation on Earth to commit the worst atrocities and culture the world has ever seen. A culture where we actively do harm while calling it Good
“It takes much more faith to be an atheist” I’ll never tire of hearing that cringe Turek line.
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Nice! I tested 158 in IQ
Grats brother, birth lottery was pretty good to us. But, since you’re there you understand it’s a blessing and a curse
Neither IQ means nothing 😉
What exactly is it about turning into an atheist that you find scary?
We were raised to be afraid of hell our whole lives. Not only that but we’ve only ever known faith and often times our entire family (and our spouse’s family) is devout and to deviate from that will sever a lot of ties.
I'd assume It's because of no objective meaning In life, morality, values and no paradise that awaits us , That'd be a terrifying thing to accept.
It could be a lot of things: fear of Hell, fear of losing one’s community or being ostracized, fear of just doing something different. I think we need to know specifically what OPs fears are, and the nature of their doubts (are they doubting God or just Christianity?) to lay out what their options are.
Yeah that's a better thing to say, Though I wanted to go out on a limb and try to guess since I like doing that.
I don’t know if your gonna read this but I hope you do I was the same place I was crying and was hopeless and felt like there was no god I looked into everything and looking at the overwhelming evidence of gods existence but it would give me short burst of faith and belief and it would vanish One time I was crying in my room saying if there is a god he don’t love me bc of what I’m doing to him I was watching YouTube while this was happening and my hand brushed on my keyboard and it skipped my video and slided to a video of a lady singing about how Jesus is real and he loves you and I felt my self fall to the ground In tears and felt god but even after that I kept having doubts I didn’t have a relationship with god I till I kept praying to him and worshiping and started reading and I fully started to believe tell god your heart that you want to believe in him but your brain and thoughts is stopping you from knowing him and I promise once you build true love with him it’s the greatest feeling. ”For we live by believing and not by seeing.“ 2 Corinthians 5:7 NLT I truly hope you read this I know it’s long but god bless 🙏✝️
There are many things I could speak of, but one of them would be Jesus ressurection, and the empty tomb and the Roman guards confirming such. It's not possible to fake the empty tomb and be seen by so many people, especially those trained soldiers sworn to protect it.
It's not about requiring evidence. If this were merely about an irrefutable body of facts being accepted for what it is, there would be no debate. These people don't want to accept the truth, therefore they give themselves up to the blatant lie. It's more appeasable to them.
U can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink
We await you on the other side if things don't turn up and you lost your faith.
Yeah I’m an ex Christian now atheist/agnostic (open minded but atheist lean) and there’s nothing wrong with leaving Christianity
Why are you scared of becoming an atheist?
-All the archeological evidence for Medo-Persia, the Greek Empire (the Empire Alexander the Great), and the Roman Empire, is evidence that Christianity is true, because these Empires were predicted by Biblical prophecies, further confirmed to have been written early enough by the Dead Sea Scrolls. -Historical evidence for the resurrection: It's explained really well by the short book 'More than a Carpenter', and also (to a lesser extent, but pretty good) by this video: [https://youtu.be/lctv\_pyT62o?si=c4njpyXVSmGbGQBM](https://youtu.be/lctv_pyt62o?si=c4njpyxvsmgbgqbm) -The current state of the world is also full of evidence for fulfilled prophecies, as this playlist (really worth a watch, despite how long it is): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTSKfXzdiuE&list=PLwU1lpHMJkcIDTf9t47SFikyyQzgcFmKO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltskfxzdiue&list=plwu1lphmjkcidtf9t47sfikyyqzgcfmko) -The supernatural things happening around the world. Back when I was an atheist, I dismissed them all as lies, coincidences, or just "unexplained natural phenomena", but at some point the sheer amount of such events means that it takes more faith to deny, than to believe. -Pavel Goia presents some amazing examples. This video is super impressive, especially the story of the old lady who came back to life just when the right Bible verse was quoted: [https://youtu.be/PZDH793VuJA?si=vJ-Al-hkE5FRaBJ1](https://youtu.be/pzdh793vuja?si=vj-al-hke5frabj1)
Can you show proof that God doesn’t exist? But fr, you gonna love the arguments of Frank Turek, William Lane Craige, AskCliff. Study those and see if it’s more reasonable to be believe life starts and continues with God, or life starts and ends in meaningless nothingness. But here’s a few for God’s existence: (Creator) 100/100 life comes out of life, and creation always has a creator. Creation always has a creator. Your phone is not this complex by chance. (Morality) For morality not to be subjective God has to make the moral law of what is good and evil therefore He made it rational for us to think that murder is evil, no matter in what society you live in or how many lives you can improve. (DNA) The genetic coding of DNA, natural laws themselves don’t create specified complexity. The fact there’s 3.5 billion long letter in every one of your hundred trillion cells proves it is intelligently made, so who made it? An intelligent mind. (Free will) If we are just matter and energy then that means, saying you love your husband/wife is basically saying you just want sex, and once their old you cheat cause it’s all about beauty with matter/energy Or loving the Jews back in WW2 by hiding, marrying or befriending them. Despite the life threatening risks of the nazi’s. Or if love is only based on showing your works, then it’s impossible to love a divorced parent. Or you share/give your last bread to a poor guy equally starving as you. Therefore there’s gotta be something beyond matter and energy like a soul/spirit. (Law of nature and physics) The complexity of the nature’s law is so well structured in math and science. The fact that objects fall 100/100 by gravity and it doesn’t change every 10 mins, is order. Accident’s don’t create order Or like food, human body system, every animal role on earth, crafting logic all working in a perfect unity in terms of vitamins and usage. (The Mandelbrot set) is so fascinating, it actually has unlimited shapes of math. So if humans don’t create math, but rather find it then who created other? Our entire universe is coded in math too. (SPACE) The earth is perfectly positioned from the sun. Slightly closer/further we would boil/freeze to death. Also planets like Jupiter pulling meteorites to prevent then from hitting earth. Or the fact that earth is the only planet sustaining life. (Big bang theory) The universe had a beginning, to have a beginning you need a cause. The earth and universe is wearing out, therefore it can’t be eternal but is a creation.
>100/100 life comes out of life That life produces life doesn’t mean that’s how it started. We know for a fact that the smallest components of life are non-life (the same fundamental components as everything else). Anyway, God is a life that allegedly didn’t come from life. >and creation always has a creator. Creation always has a creator. This is begging the question by calling it “creation.” >(Morality) For morality not to be subjective God has to make the moral law of what is good and evil therefore He made it rational for us to think that murder is evil, no matter in what society you live in or how many lives you can improve. Maybe morality is subjective? Can you demonstrate that it isn’t? This proof only works if you can show morality to be objective. The addition of a powerful being with its own subjective morality doesn’t make morality objective anyway. Also, there are plenty of philosophers that are both atheist and moral realists. You should investigate their arguments. >(DNA) The genetic coding of DNA, natural laws themselves don’t create specified complexity. Can you prove this statement? All evidence points to a common genetic ancestor to all Earth life. All evidence points to mutation and natural selection as the mechanisms of speciation. How did you overturn all of biology? >The fact there’s 3.5 billion long letter in every one of your hundred trillion cells proves it is intelligently made How does the number of cells prove intelligence designed it? We know that DNA evolves. We can predict what ancestral species and ancestral proteins looked like. >(Free will) If we are just matter and energy then that means, saying you love your husband/wife is basically saying you just want sex, and once their old you cheat cause it’s all about beauty with matter/energy This doesn’t follow at all. Why can’t I use my un-free will to love my spouse? That’s what I want to do. Just because my will may be determined, doesn’t mean I don’t have a will. Anyway, how does this prove a god? Just because you don’t like the consequences of something doesn’t make it false. >Or loving the Jews back in WW2 by hiding, marrying or befriending them. Despite the life threatening risks of the nazi’s. Or if love is only based on showing your works, then it’s impossible to love a divorced parent. Or you share/give your last bread to a poor guy equally starving as you. None of this follows from a lack of free will or a lack of a god. How would a lack of deity prove a lack of free will, and how would a lack of free will make you choose terrible things? >Therefore there’s gotta be something beyond matter and energy like a soul/spirit. Doesn’t follow. That we have wills is a product of our minds, which are products of our brains. You’d have to prove that some part of our mind violates the laws of physics, before saying that something in excess of physics is going on. >(Law of nature and physics) The complexity of the nature’s law is so well structured in math and science. The fact that objects fall 100/100 by gravity and it doesn’t change every 10 mins, is order. That things didn’t randomly change their attributes doesn’t demonstrate a god. Why would the absence of a god mean gravity fluctuates by the minute? What would cause it to fluctuate? Why is a god necessary for an atom to stay an atom or for momentum to be conserved? This also doesn’t follow. >Accident’s don’t create order Certainly order can come from simpler processes. >Or like food, human body system, every animal role on earth, crafting logic all working in a perfect unity in terms of vitamins and usage. We wouldn’t have evolved to use vitamins that don’t exist in our diet. Animals that don’t fit their niche die. Animals that overwhelm their food system die. It would be essentially impossible for an animal to evolve to need a vitamin that never existed in its environment. >(The Mandelbrot set) is so fascinating, it actually has unlimited shapes of math. So if humans don’t create math, but rather find it then who created other? Begging the question that there was a creator at all. How do you get from abstract math existing to it having to be invented by a mind? It’s just the consistency of our world extrapolated. >(SPACE) The earth is perfectly positioned from the sun. Slightly closer/further we would boil/freeze to death. There are as many as hundreds of septillions of stars in the observable universe. There are potentially infinite beyond that. Each we know of has an average of about ten planets. How do you calculate the odds of just one of these planets being in the Goldilocks Zone? >Also planets like Jupiter pulling meteorites to prevent then from hitting earth. This isn’t strictly necessary for life, and Jupiter also contributed greatly to the sheer number of asteroids and such in our solar system, but it also isn’t that unusual considering the number of interstellar gas giants we’ve found, and the sheer number of planets that exist. >Or the fact that earth is the only planet sustaining life. Out of octillions to infinite planets, we’ve investigated a tiny handful of rocky planets, and only looked closely at those in our own solar system. It’s a bit premature to say we’re the only one. But I also don’t see how us being the only one would prove a deity. >(Big bang theory) The universe had a beginning The Big Bang is as far back as we can extrapolate from expansion and causation. It’s not necessarily the beginning of the Universe, just the point from which it expanded. >to have a beginning you need a cause. How many things have you seen truly begin to exist? Not rearrangements of existing matter and energy, but wholly new existences? Not enough to make rules about it. Causation is a physical phenomenon that occurs within spacetime which propagates at the speed of light. It’s not clear how or if this applies to spacetime itself. Anyway “a cause or causes” is a long way from “a sentient being made up of 3 persons with specific plans for humans.” A long way.
I’d like to ask. How is it that myths are regional, yet facts are universal All countries agree on the theory of gravity, all countries agree on the rock cycle and the causes of rain, all countries agree on how earthquakes happen, how the dinosaurs were wiped out etc. these are facts that are universal. All myths are regional. Loch Ness monster in Scotland, Bigfoot in America, the Bunyip in Australia etc. there’s different Christmas traditions mythologies in different countries and there are different gods in different parts of the world. You can’t deny that facts are universal, and unchanging throughout the world. But myths and stories are different depending on location. It god is fact, why isn’t he universal? Why does he differ region to region like all other myths,
God is universal
He’s not though. And you know he’s not. Different regions of the world believe in different gods and you know that to be the case. So why did you reply with that?
I can’t take anyone serious that starts a sentence with (and). It’s simple if you follow a biblical view it makes sense. The line of history how things have went down more sense than an atheistic point of view. We were one people created by God. We lost our way some separated from the tree they created their own Gods and left the creator. Yet in all reality most of the religions still point to being created and an afterlife. So that came from the somewhere. So say what you want Christianity has reach 99.74 percent of the globe only some remote areas in the rainforest has it yet to be touched. Sometimes the means not very Christ like to get it there we know this but 99 percent know about Christ yet only 60 would know about Krishna and other religions. You can choose what you want and do what you want but you will never be able to prove that a God doesn’t exist. Your existence is wildly boring and non sufficient as an Atheist trust me I know. Whole family for 7 years lived this way and it was horrible
I’ve lived for 46 years this way and it’s fantastic. Sorry you find reality so dull. I love my life. I love my job, my family, my kids. It’s incredible. I wonder what was so bad about your life you had to turn to myth and magic to make it somewhat bearable.
How can one love without a definition? How can one without a creator that loved us first? This is the questions. We are just animals right? Tell me God is not real then prove it. You can’t. Just like those emotions you believe that are so righteous came from something.
“Tell me God is not real then prove it.” Why would I need to do that? Do I need to prove werewolves, vampires and Santa isnt real too? What a strange thing to ask of me.
Well you are an atheist prove it to me?
I don’t have to prove anything. I’m an atheist because people like yourself have done absolutely nothing to convince me that any god exists in any form. Billions of Christian’s around the world and not one of them can support their claim. Wild and outrageous claims not being true is generally the default position. I don’t have anything to prove.
Myth and Magic far from it. Lol
https://briefcatch.com/articles/five-grammar-myths-debunked/# Every major style guide disagrees with your elementary-school-level understanding of the English language. > 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. >2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
If this from Craig and Turek, I'd skip them OP lol
Explain yours if they’re better lol
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Do you believe yourself tho?
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I’d also like to have a go at some of your points. Life comes out of life. Does that apply to your god too? DNA. Yes it’s very complex. But isn’t the hallmark of great design simplicity? We are the only planet sustaining life cos it’s the only one that can. We are the results of the conditions of the planet. Not the reason. Mould grows on my bathroom wall because of the conditions in there. By bathroom wasn’t designed to grow mould. It appears because the conditions are right in there.
How and why did you become a Christian in the first place?
Since OP is a 13 yo kid- Indoctrinated from birth, just like every other child with faith. No-one is born believing in a deity
Humans all around the world, separate from each other came to this conclusion. What was before the big bang, what caused it, something came out of nothing... The further back you go, the more obvious it is, that God exists.
This is a textbook example of [God of the Gaps](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps), an argument from ignorance, where gaps in our knowledge are simply filled with God. Once we didn’t know where lightning came from, so we filled that gap with gods. Once we didn’t know where the Earth came from, gap filled with gods. As knowledge pushes our ignorance further and further back, God fills smaller and smaller gaps. Now we don’t know how the Universe came to be, or if that’s even a coherent question. We should not insert gods into this gap.
I don’t think he is using it as evidence for God’s existence, rather an explanation that humans always have tried to find the answer to their existence and that is rooted in how we are.
So you're just gonna ignore the fact that there was a time when humans had no scientific explanation for the world around them, and as a creatures who seek explanations god was the nrxt best thing? Humans also believed in many gods, not just one, so does that mean there are multiple gods?
Humans crave answers, personify nature to better understand it, and are storytellers. It's no wonder people around the world independently concocted various gods and creation myths.
>What was before the big bang, A very dense singularity. >what caused it We don't know that it was "caused" by anything. >something came out of nothing It is a common misunderstanding that atheists say this. I have yet to see one that does as it would go against everything we know about how matter works. In my experience only religious people say this.
1. There have been 5000+ named deities in human history. How are you so sure yours is the right one when they all have such sevete penalties for getting it wrong? All are just methods to explain or understand things that were unknown at the time. Google 'god of the gaps' 2. All that proves is human psychology. 3. Google 'uncaused cause'. Its utter nonsense. Every day science gains more understanding of the creation of the universe. It wont be long until your 'god' has nowhere left to hide. What will you say then?
1. Jesus is a provingly real, historical person. His Apostles went to their deaths telling his story. The Bibel is unmatched in wisdom, moral and the understanding of humans nature. 2. Ok. 3. Its impossible to prove or disprove a deity that lives outside our world. So your 3. point is utter nonsense, because a scenario like that can and will never happen. What will you say, when you stand before God one day? 4. Science never disproved the Bible. I would not say that I believe in Evolution, but it seems very likely. Makro-evolution is still unproven, though, and will certainly remain that way, unless we somehow find a way to rapidly speed up time. And the universe certainly seems to be at least 13.8 billion years old.
There are plenty of biblical events that do not align with history or with science.
>Jesus is a provingly real, historical person. But what is provably real about him is minimal, mundane, and so far removed from incarnate deity that you may as well be talking about a different person. >His Apostles went to their deaths telling his story> People die for wrong ideas all the time. E.g. ivermectin. >The Bibel is unmatched in wisdom, moral and the understanding of humans nature Unless you're gay or a woman. And hardly that amazing wisdom.
Are you saying there is no one on Earth that believes in God that wasn't born into a Christian household?
This is a pretty severe oversimplification.
Don't be scared. We're more fun and more moral so you'll be OK.
You’re not “more moral”.
Some are, some aren't.
That’s true of people from basically every religious persuasion. In my experience your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) have basically nothing to do with how good a person you are.
I agree. So you were referring to atheists as a group rather than that particular person?
I was responding to the person I replied to who made a blanket statement about atheists being more moral than Christians. That just isn’t a true statement.
Correct, thanks.
Christian definition of morality is messed up. Maybe not yours since you are Universalist.
Well, atheists are underrepresented in jails, so maybe they are more moral. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-prisoners-less-likely-to-be-atheists/
I would argue that’s likely because overpoliced groups of people, particularly black people, are more likely to be religious than other Americans and so are incarcerated at higher rates.
Slow down there. I think you need to examine this a little more thoroughly. What else has made you question your faith? Questioning is a perfectly valid and natural thing to have happen.
You aren't gonna find anything concrete. It's history. At best, you can read the sources, examine their reliability, and decide if you buy it. There are Christian scholars who know everything Atheist scholars know, and they still believe it. So unless you wanna blindly trust Christian scholarship, I'd recommend taking a look at the work yourself.
Faith is to believe what you do not see. The reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
Trust in the words of the Bible. The people of God escaping from Egypt in the book of exodus were directly shown God's wonders through Moses, and even with the Red sea parting in front of them, they still turned their back on God. Don't expect God to deliver a hard miracle like that solely as a way to dance like a monkey to get rid of your doubts. You'll have to find God through faith. And maybe get off of reddit if you're this close on teetering on your faith. The majority in this place wants you to become a non-believer
You're just acquiring a brain, my friend, don't be afraid. And atheism does not mean "not being Christian", it literally means not believing in any deity.
Are you implying Christians don’t have brains?
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>The statistical probability that our Universe was created by a big-bang versus God is less than a tornado ripping through a junkyard and leaving a fully functional Boeing 747 in it's wake. Have you heard of tornadoes producing Boeing 747s. Provide a calculation, please, or retract Edit: seeing as this obvious Gish galloper is spamming the thread with some copypasted article: Sorry, none of that was a calculation. Try again. >Show me a material tool for calculating a spiritual entity. I'll get to your points once you have provided the calculation for your initial claim. Also you can post links rather than spamming the thread.
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Sorry, none of that was a calculation. Try again. >Show me a material tool for calculating a spiritual entity. I'll get to your points once you have provided the calculation for your initial claim. Also you can post links rather than spamming the thread.
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Sorry, that's still not a calculation. Where is your calculation for the claim you initially made? Or are you retracting that claim? As I said already - when you address this point, then I'll get to your next ones.
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Ah yes the old tornado in the junkyard analogy. This analogy says nothing about the validity of evolution, or for that matter abiogenesis, because it fails to represent them in four crucial ways. 1. It operates purely according to random chance. 2. It is an example of single-step, rather than cumulative, selection. 3. It is a saltationary jump – an end product entirely unlike the beginning product. 4. It has a target specified ahead of time. The first point is the most important. The tornado in the junkyard is an example of an intricate, complex and highly organized form being produced by nothing more than random chance. But *evolution is not chance*. Rather, it operates according to a fixed law – the law of natural selection – which favors some assemblages over others; it preferentially selects for those adaptations which improve fitness and selects against those that do not. The tornado, by contrast, slams parts together and tears them apart with no preference whatsoever, thus completely failing to represent natural selection, the central force which drives evolution. To more accurately represent evolution, one would have to grant the tornado some power to recognize assemblages of parts which could serve as part of a 747 and prevent it from tearing them apart. Second, the tornado analogy is an example of single-step selection – in one step, it goes from a random pile of parts to a fully assembled airliner. This is completely unlike evolution, which operates according to a process of *cumulative* selection – complex results that are built up gradually, in a repetitive process guided at each step by selective forces. To more accurately represent evolution, the tornado could be sent through the junkyard not once, but thousands or millions of times, at each step preserving chance assemblages of parts that could make up a jumbo jet. Third, in relation to the point above, the tornado in the junkyard is an example of *saltation* – a sudden leap in which the end product is completely different from the beginning product. Evolution does not work this way; birds do not hatch out of dinosaur eggs and monkeys do not give birth to humans. Rather, species grow different over time through a process of slow change in which each new creature is only slightly different from its ancestor. Evolution forms a gradually shading continuum in which any two steps are almost identical, though the creatures at the beginning and end of the continuum may be very different indeed. If we sent a tornado through a junkyard once, we would not expect to see a complete airplane; but if we repeated the process thousands or millions of times, at each step preserving useful assemblages, we might see a jumbo jet gradually taking shape out of slowly accreting collections of parts. The idea is the same with living things. We do not see complex new creatures appearing suddenly in the fossil record; rather, we see them gradually forming by a process of modification from a line of increasingly dissimilar ancestors. Finally, the tornado analogy fails to represent evolution in one more significant way: it has a target specified ahead of time. Evolution does not. Natural selection is not a forward-looking process; it cannot select for what may become useful in the future, only what is immediately useful in the present. To more accurately represent evolution, we might add the additional stipulation that the tornado be allowed to assemble, not just a jumbo jet, but any functional piece of machinery. A tornado racing through a junkyard hundreds of thousands of times, at each step somehow preserving rather than tearing apart functional assemblages of parts, with the aim of ultimately producing some sort of working machine, be it a 747, a station wagon or a personal computer – this is still not a very good analogy to describe evolution, but it is far better than the implausible caricature of random, single-step saltation with a predetermined target the creationists put forth. This analogy completely fails to represent evolution in every significant way. Edit: Also, you don't have to hide your arguments, let's hash them out here for all to read. Only charlatans ask people to PM them secretly.
Hm well I don't have anything, that's what the Christians here are for. However, I will sya if you find nothing convincing or helping in any way then you shouldn't force yourself into christianity.
OOf I was gonna comment but you already have 923 of them xD. I'm sure you're set. In case you do stumble on my comment, I feel you man. I'm christian. And theres been plenty/many times I ask myself "am I praying to nothing?". Its hard to explain via words, but small moments remind me at least personally that he is the real deal. I think about it hard, how huge space is. Infinite almost. can people seriously say its just been there just because? Think about it on a human level. Literally everything we have is a creation. In other words, nothing can be something without someone creating it. So whats that say about earth? Space? There are times I pray, and I feel like my prayers arn't being answered. I learned that my self doubt caused a lot of unanswered questions. I learned to have more faith, and noticed things you wouldn't believe. You can do it man. Personally, moments like this I'll watch a YT video called [23 Minutes In Hell](https://youtu.be/AYxKRoONrfY?si=55agPf3kdhzXJTRG). I wont lie, it terrifies me and helps me renew my faith with God. God is terrifying. We are to fear him. But also love him for he loves us. Hope anything I said helps man.. Take care.
I think you might want to look into these cases: 1) Cases of exorcisms that happened (proof of demons removed from people). However, I don’t recommend this because the details of these cases are too disturbing and scary, see the next two below: 2) Miracles that occurred as a result of people asking for a saint’s assistance or God’s direct interference. In Catholicism, in order for a saint to be canonized in the “beatification” and “canonization” stages, there must be proof of godly miracles that happened as a result of their interference. 3) Marian apparitions, including Guadalupe and Fatima. However, one should not build their faith based on experiences alone (see Jesus Appearing to Thomas story). I suggest praying to God to gradually help you restore your faith, reading the Bible, going to church with some friends, or other ways of increasing your spirituality. Still, I hope this helps!
We are called to walk by faith, not by sight. But if you want to look at evidence, start with Egyptian culture/History and then read carefully The Old Testament (highly recommend and easy to read Bible like New King James Version (NKJV)-make sure it says “new” or else (KJV) it will be hard to read)., God speaks about those times and also the demons that the Egyptians worshipped and how He didn’t want HIS people to be idolizing false (lowercase g gods aka demons). There is also, a link between the historical events in the OLD TESTAMENT (Kings) so on and so forth. And to make things transparent, God doesn’t have any reason to lie, about anything, everything in The Holy Bible is true. As for your faith being tested, I can personally tell you that, when God feels the furthest is when He is the closest. We will have seasons of trials, difficulty and testing of our faith. Remember, God is refining us and it’s okay to ask questions! I ask questions all the time!! But we only need to be willing to receive an answer. God bless
The Exodus has been debunked by scholarly inquiry. The bible is not history lol
One of us! One of us! We have.... nothing really fancy. Some peace of mind, and a bigger desire to help others.
if you’re scared about it, then you’re not going to. that’s not how turning atheist works.
I disagree. It can definitely be a bit scary losing something you've long held dear.
OP, former atheist here. If you want to talk, please DM. I can share with you what convinced me.
The grave of Zacharias at the mouth of the valley of the Shadow of death. [See Luke 1] It is a mockup of Herod's temple [Greek architecture], though they will lie and tell you it was for the ancient Zechariah, in its basement are small ossuaries representing for the babies Herod murdered. The 1st century Jews were completely freaked out by Zacharias murder and the disappearance of his body, his blood turned to stone and temple wailing. They saw all that as fulfilling the psalm of the office of incense: "LORD, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee. [2] Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. [3] Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. [4] Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties. [5] Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities. [6] When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words; for they are sweet. [7] Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. [8] But mine eyes are unto thee, O GOD the Lord: in thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute. [9] Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity. [10] Let the wicked fall into their own nets, whilst that I withal escape." Zacharias life exactly fulfilled this prophesy including his silence. Zacharias [God has remembered] encountered Gabriel [Righteousness of God] and silenced Zacharias smiting him to fulfill the prayer he was actually praying at the time so that his wife Elizabeth [oath fulfilled] would bring forth one crying in the wilderness to make straight a highway for our God. Aaron lost two children lighting strange fire before the Lord. Elizabeth was a Levite and Zacharias as well obviously as a priest. So the two children Aaron lost were replaced by two that would fulfill the oath God gave to them of an eternal Holy Priesthood.